


Glass Animals

by mapleakuma



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Cryptid Hunting, Fix it of a sort, Fluff, Getting Together (Sort Of), M/M, References to gore but no actual gore, daemon AU, look I just wanted to write a Daemon AU OK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 12:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16493009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapleakuma/pseuds/mapleakuma
Summary: Eddie never would have guessed that his daemon would wind up settling as a bloodsucking, parasitic leech. For a myriad of reasons- partially because he would like to think that as a person he would manifest something better than that- but primarily because for his entire life he hasn’t actually had a daemon.He still doesn’t.In which Eddie gets an alien symbiote for a daemon and they maybe fall in love. Also, more importantly, cryptid hunting.





	Glass Animals

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted a Venom daemon AU and so I wrote one. This is actually the first piece of fanfiction I've written since I was 12, I can't believe after all these fandoms Venom made me do it. Please pray for me.

“What’s that you got there?”

Eddie starts, lifting his head from the muttered conversation he had been having with Venom in surprise at the interruption. He can feel Venom whip sharply back under his sweatshirt sleeve from where he had been peeking out moments before. “This is… uh….” -he grasps desperately at straws, trying to gauge how much she overheard- “Vee…..my…daemon?”

Karen- or Caroline, or possibly Carol- he doesn’t quite have all his new coworkers down yet- frowns at him dubiously. Her daemon- a squirrel of some kind, perched precariously on the shoulder of her blouse- mirrors the expression. “Oh! I didn’t know you had one?”

Eddie can’t fault her for that because well. Technically he didn’t. Doesn’t.

“Well. He’s kind of...small? And people find him uh. A little off-putting. So we don’t really show him off much.” He offers Karen/Carol what he hopes is a charming smile. In his head, he can feel Venom stirring with curiosity. “Please just roll with it,” he mentally sends.

Karen (or maybe it was Caroline) is nothing if not persistent. “I’m curious now, about what kind of animal he is!” she smiles, a little artificially. “You know, we- like, the office- had a betting pool going on regarding if your daemon was like, a bug or something, or if you actually didn’t have one,” which, ugh,  _ gross _ .

**_“WE SHOULD EAT HER.”_ **

“NO.” Eddie sends back fiercely even as he feels anxiety start to crawl up his spine. Despite his career choices, he’s always been a pretty terrible liar when put on the spot. There’s no way to keep deflecting Karenlynn’s invasive questions without coming off as super weird, and he doesn’t want people really looking into him more than necessary, for obvious reasons. Sweating bullets, he casts around wildly in his head for a potential answer and-

“Sure,” Eddie lifts his arm and makes like he is shaking his sleeve down. “Vee is. A leech.” Simultaneously, he hurriedly projects a series of reference images towards Venom and crosses his fingers that he’ll get the memo.

**“LEECH!?”**

Eddie rolls his sleeve down to his elbow and dares a glance. Despite the cry of indignation, Venom has caught on fast and is now doing his best imitation of something shaped approximately like a leech wrapped around Eddie’s forearm. He turns what Eddie presumes is the leech’s head towards Karol and smiles with probably biologically inaccurate teeth. Well, it’s a good thing they are not biologists.

**“Hiii.”** Venom hisses and tries to sound as non-extraterrestrial as possible, modulating his voice into a whisper. He does a squelchy little wiggle that looks absolutely disgusting. Good job, Venom.

Carol (potentially Caren) looks down her nose at them with something bordering on distaste. “Oh.” She frowns a little. “Not the daemon I’d pegged a guy like you to have, not gonna lie.” Eddie can feel himself involuntarily tense a little at that. “Not that there’s anything wrong with having a leech daemon! Just, you know, you always expect investigative reporters to have something a bit more… glamorous. Is he always just…like…” -here she makes a vague gesture with her hands- “hanging around on you? Leeches like, drink blood, right? Is he actually feeding off of you?”

“You know what.” Eddie nods seriously at her, unable to help himself. “Daemons don’t technically need to eat, but he does. Like some sort of weird parasite that’s always goddamn starving. I think that’s how he shows his love.” Venom continues to look bloblike and disgusting, but somehow now with an air of petulance.

“Thats. Uuuh. That is very cool.” Caroline is still eyeing Venom with trepidation, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “I just remembered I gotta go… do a report. With a very tight deadline, so I will be leaving now. Eddie, Vee, it was nice getting to know you! Have a …nice day!”

“Crisis averted,” Eddie thinks to himself in relief as he watches Karolyn walk hurriedly away. It doesn’t look like she’ll be back. Hopefully he won’t have to talk to her again anytime soon.

**“EDDIE.’”** Venom wails piteously from the back of his skull.  **“EDDIE WE ARE NOT A PARASITE. WE ARE NOT LIKE THIS. LEECH CREATURE.”**

Eddie glances around briefly and then dares to pat him with what he hopes is a consoling gesture.

“Vee, you gotta trust me on this,” He whispers down at his arm. “Not much else we can really disguise you as, you know? It’s nothing against you- just don’t think there are too many animals you can convincingly pretend to be.” Then- because he can still feel Venom sulking, and it makes him feel bad when Venom feels bad- “Tell you what. We’ll pick up some of that spicy chocolate you like so much on our way home from work. My treat.”

In the back of his head he can feel Venom settle down slightly, irritation still present but mollified for now. Turning back to his computer, Eddie settles down to finally start his day of work.

 

\----

 

It’s like this, see. The majority of the world is born with daemons, second halves in a myriad of animal forms, and have been since the start of recorded history. And, since the start of recorded history, there have been a fairly consistent number of documented cases of people who- for whatever, unknown, unaccountable reason- simply do not physically manifest daemons. Eddie’s a minority but not an abnormality.

Researchers are still not quite sure what aspects exactly the daemon is supposed to reflect, how the final form they choose to settle as is determined, and what it means when people don’t have physically manifested daemons. It is pretty evident from abundant historical evidence that having or not having a daemon does not seem to have any basis on, say, morality, or behavior. And, despite what some idiotic and/or superstitious people online might say about the state of his soul, Eddie has certainly never felt like he’s missing some integral part of himself.

Anne certainly wasn’t missing anything as noticeable as a soul. She had been born without a daemon as well, but that was barely noticeably because she was sweet and sharp and smart as a whip and Eddie had loved her so more than anything. It was perhaps a little lonely, living in a society where most others would never have to experience being truly alone, would never not have someone to talk to. Maybe that was one of the reasons they had gravitated towards each other. There was some solidarity in that shared experience- it was certainly not the only reason, but definitely a factor. And they fit well together, the two of them and Anne’s piss poor excuse for a cat, until they didn’t.

Dan did have a daemon, a friendly looking little mutt that trotted faithfully at his heels everywhere they went and probably helped put his patients at ease when he had to deliver bad news. The first time they met, he had noticed Anne casually scratch the little dog behind the ears like it was no big deal, Eddie had felt… not jealous exactly. But resigned and a little lost, because that meant that it was really over between them, and because that was something monumental that he’d never be able to experience giving.

Nowadays, all these months later, he doesn’t really feel that way towards them anymore. They’re a good match, and Eddie can only feel happy that they are happy together. And anyways, nowadays, Eddie is pretty preoccupied with other matters.

 

\----

 

Eddie supposes that Carlton Drake’s rocket explosion and the currently ongoing LIFE Foundation implosion have one unforseen positive side effect, which is the end of his being unofficially blacklisted. The job offers don’t exactly come flying in, but it is a million times better than the six months he spent listening to radio silence. Eddie picks one that looks like it won’t draw too much attention towards him. His new employer is a bizarre tabloid that seems primarily obsessed with three topics: celebrity dating gossip, daemon horoscopes, and finding Bigfoot. It’s disreputable, but not the sort of disreputable that might potentially trigger nuclear war that has become so in vogue these days so Eddie will take it. The small downside is that about half his new coworkers (for example, Carol) do firmly believe in what they’re peddling, and can be a strange, superstitious lot, particularly when daemons are concerned.

“How would you like to go to Montana,” Irene, Eddie’s new boss, asks him from the other side of her cramped and very small desk. Every inch of it seems to be covered in either hastily scrawled, hot pink post it notes or various cryptid-related knick-knacks. Mothman bobbles his head at Eddie from the corner he has been shoved in. An alien abduction mug still half filled with now cold tea perches next to him. The clutter is utterly appalling.

Eddie had spent most of the walk to Irene’s office wondering idly if she was both the type of boss superstitious enough to fire someone for having a leech daemon and also not well versed enough in employment law to actually do it, so the question comes to him as a slight surprise.

**“WHAT IS THIS, MONTANA.”**

“North,” he mentally sends Venom. “Different state- lots of wildlife, not a lot of people, mountains, fresh air, snow. You’ll like it there. Maybe we can try catching an elk or something.”

**“ELK SOUNDS DELICIOUS. I AM DOWN.”**

“Depends,” he hedges. “What’s in Montana?”

It turns out Montana contains a small touristy mountain town named Whitefish, from which multiple reports of cryptid sightings have been made recently. Irene knows this because their magazine- heaven help them- has a 24/7 cryptid hotline.

“It’s definitely not Bigfoot”- Irene actually looks pretty disappointed at this- “but it’s definitely something. Whitefish doesn’t really have a history of cryptid sightings, so it’s very strange that so many are happening all at once, with people who don’t seem to be connected to each other at all. Plus, hey! We found some tickets to Montana that were really, really cheap- still too cold for most tourists, so this will actually not utterly obliterate our budget”. She points her “lizard people are real and they are coming” pen at Eddie. Her daemon- a frilled lizard not-person- likewise swivels his head to look at him. “You actually have a background in investigative reporting, everyone else here mostly just writes articles about daemon horoscopes and red carpet takedowns, so you’re clearly the best person for this job.”

Eddie wants to feel flattered, but that is honestly a depressingly low bar to clear.

**“YOU ARE GOOD AT YOUR JOB.”** Venom rumbles helpfully in his brain.  **“HER ASSESSMENT IS CORRECT.”**

“Thank you,” he says out loud, both to Irene and Venom.

**“YOU’RE WELCOME.”**

“We are going to break this story wide open,” Irene assures him as she emails him the details for his flight the next day. “Sending a journalist into the field… that’s how you know we’ve made it. This is the sort of hard, heavy hitting story our magazine deserves to have. Not like those dumb fluff pieces we’re publishing all the time.”

 

\----

 

Dora Skirth had exuded a constant nervous energy and had no apparent daemon in sight because, as it had turned out, she was also one of those rare people with no physically manifested daemon. They’d discussed it on their oppressively nerve wracking drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and to the LIFE Foundation headquarters. The two of them talked just to fill in the silence, just to do something as they traveled to what very easily could be their doom.

“I always imagined…” she had bitten her lip, nervous. “Sometimes, when I was a kid, I’d imagine what it would be like, if I had one? And what type of animal it would end up settling as. I always thought mine would be a mouse, or I don’t know, a rabbit or something. Something high strung. There’s some irony there, wanting a lab animal for a daemon and then winding up as a biologist.”

Eddie had studied her. She definitely looked like the sort of person to have a rabbit daemon, thick-framed, square glasses exaggerating the naked worry in her eyes, hands constantly in nervous motion. He hadn’t really meant to open up to a complete stranger, but he had been completely alone for a very long time, so the words just tumbled out: “I know what you mean. I know I shouldn’t think about what isn’t possible, but sometimes I do wonder. Like- back when I was employed, I guess- sometimes I’d just casually think about how much easier things would be if I could have a small daemon that could help eavesdrop without being noticed. The sort of daemon everyone thinks reporters should have. Or else maybe something really cool and badass that would protect me, like a timber wolf or a viper. It wasn’t really a desperate want or anything, just an idle thought that would happen from time to time.”

“Yeah, exactly!” She had glanced at him briefly with a small smile on her face. “It’s not like you really feel like there’s some irreplaceably important part of yourself that’s just gone, not having a daemon, you know? Like it isn’t that there’s some awful hole that needs filling. But because everyone else has one, you can’t help wonder what you’re missing out on.” She had paused for a moment. “And… it’s probably nice. Having someone to talk things through with all the time. People are not really meant to be alone. Trust me, I’m a biologist.”

“Well.” Eddie shrugged ruefully. “At the very least I can be grateful I didn’t end up with something gigantic, like an elephant or, I don’t know, a giraffe. Would have made investigative journalism damn near impossible.”

Dora Skirth had laughed at that. And then they were there, at the gates of the LIFE Foundation, somber and ready to break in, two strangers brought together both by their quest for answers and now, unexpectedly, by a shared experience.

After the break in had been pure chaos, and Eddie had lost track of Skirth in his desperate bid for freedom, something new curled up around his heart along for the ride. She’d responded to his texts right up until she hadn’t. Eddie is not sure what happened to poor Dr. Skirth, but he can hazard a guess, and that guess was really fucking unpleasant. She hadn’t deserved that: she’d only been trying to do the right thing, and had paid the ultimate price.

 

\----

 

Eddie goes home to pack and stops to buy two bars of the weirdly expensive spicy chocolate Venom seems to love on the way ( **“IT MAKES OUR TONGUE TINGLY, EDDIE. WE LIKE TINGLY.”** ). The moment he closes his apartment door, he can feel Venom wind out of him and then around his neck, curled up like a shadowy scarf or a particularly contented cat.

**“CATS ARE NICE.”** There’s Venom, picking up on his thoughts.  **“THEY LOOK VERY TASTY.”**

“You can’t eat cats!” Eddie groans as he shuffles his way towards his fridge to categorize his leftovers and put together some food for his ever-hungry companion. “Cats are friends. Not food.”

**“PEOPLE LIKE CATS.”** Venom agrees with him.  **“CATS MAKE GOOD DAEMONS. PEOPLE LIKE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE CUTE. STILL LOOK TASTY THOUGH.”** Almost as an afterthought, he morphs, growing ears and shaping himself into something vaguely catlike. From far away, he could possibly pass as one. If it were dark out. And the person looking at him was not paying too much attention. Close up, the effect is a little terrifying and uncanny, the cat undulating and rippling unnaturally as Venom tries to hold the form.

“You definitely can’t eat other people’s daemons,” Eddie shoots back even though he can tell Venom is (mostly) joking. He gamely scritches Venom on the not-ears, finger sinking slightly into the slime as he does so. Venom relaxes and purrs deeply in response. It sounds like a stuck chainsaw.

“Although, you know….” Eddie unwraps one of the chocolate bars. “Cats aren’t supposed to eat chocolate. It’s poisonous and can kill them. Guess I’ll have to enjoy this by myself.” He raises his eyebrow and gives the bar a little wiggle for emphasis.

Venom almost instantaneously loses form, giving up the terrifying not actually a cat and squashing back into a ball of slime.  **“EDDIE, DO NOT JOKE ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE. YOU ARE BEING VERY MEAN RIGHT NOW,”** he whines and Eddie laughs as he drops the candy bar into Venom’s waiting mouth. It is actually very cute and Eddie is definitely not going to think too hard about that because that’s a road he is very well aware exists, but doesn’t quite want to travel down yet.

Later, after Venom scarfs down the two chocolate bars and whatever leftovers they have in the fridge, when Eddie starts packing for his trip only to discover Venom craftily taking out everything he puts into his suitcase every few minutes (which he finds somehow hilarious), Eddie realizes something. Eddie realizes that even when he’s by himself he’ll never have to be alone. It’s nice, and the thought scares Eddie a little, that it’s nice not to be alone. Like he’s spent his whole life not thinking he’s been missing out on something, and now it turns out he sort of has. But also like this can only be temporary, like this is something too good to last and he’ll fuck it all up again somehow.

 

\----

 

They take off from SFO, land in Montana with minimal fuss, and rent a car to drive to Whitefish. Venom is a little surprised that Eddie seems to be okay with flying- “airplanes are OK because you can kind of trick yourself into thinking you’re on the ground or on a bus or something”, he’d explained. “It’s not so much a fear of heights as it is a fear of falling.”

The drive to Whitefish is actually only about twenty minutes from the airport. Venom spends it pressed up against the window, staring in awe at the high, snow-capped mountains zooming by. Eddie figures it’s okay; there aren’t a lot of people out on the roads of rural Montana, even in the middle of the day, and any people who do happen to catch a glance of Venom will probably chalk him up as either a trick of the eye or a particularly distasteful dashboard ornament.

**“MONTANA IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO.”** Venom observes.  **“WHY ARE THE MOUNTAINS WHITE? THE MOUNTAINS NEAR SAN FRANCISCO DO NOT HAVE THE WHITE.”**

Eddie resolutely does not think about how he finds this adorable. “That’s snow!” He explains. “Basically what happens to rain when it gets too cold. It’s too close to the ocean for it to get that cold in San Francisco, so sadly we don’t get any snow.” He sighs. “Used to snow very occasionally, back when I lived in New York? It was a hassle but I kind of miss it.”

Venom sends him a picture of a vanilla ice cream cone accompanied by an inquisitive question mark emotion. It is incredibly fucking cute. “You can certainly eat snow, but I’m afraid it won’t taste like vanilla,” says Eddie’s mouth. “I am so fucked,” says Eddie’s mind. 

 

\----

 

Whitefish is picturesque in the way any number of small mountain towns who cater primarily to seasonal tourists are. It consists of a single main street bordered on both sides by rustic brick and wood buildings full of local shops and a few restaurants. On all sides you can see the mountains looming, up, up, impossibly high. Eddie slows the car down as they enter the town proper and hit what little traffic there is, then pulls into the parking lot in front of a small and shabby looking motel and diner. He cracks his neck as the car sputters to a stop, and stretches.

“Honey, we’re here!” Eddie means it as a joke, but he’s not sure it comes out that way.

**“YES, DEAR?”**

“So uh….” -he’s trying not to think about how much he likes that- “Gotta get back inside, sweetheart! Back in the old body, we do NOT want a repeat of Carolgate. Can’t have people seein’ you hanging around, might freak them out a little bit.”

Venom radiates a slightly put-out feeling, but obligingly crawls back under Eddie’s jacket after one last interested look around. Eddie thumbs his collar reassuringly, slams and locks the car door, then strolls towards the motel entrance. The writing on the wooden door reads “THE BULL MOOSE MOTEL”, and the chimes hanging on top of it jangles wearily as he walks in.

The wooden walls are clearly old but well kept, and the lobby is clean and free of dust. The surprisingly high ceilings let in a lot of natural light and the final effect is that the motel is worn but charming in a natural sort of way. Eddie walks to the front desk and gently rings the bell.

“I’ll be right there, dear!” a voice calls from the next room. Eddie can hear the clink of eating utensils and the faint smell of pancakes wafting out of it, so it must be the diner half of this establishment. His stomach growls urgently, right on cue.

**“HUNGRY, EDDIE.”** Venom responds, also right on cue.

Two minutes later, a slightly harried but cheerful looking woman steps behind the counter. An absolutely enormous moose plods close behind her, antlers just barely fitting into the hallway. Suddenly, bot the name of the establishment and the high ceilings make sense.

“Sorry about that, dear!” She wipes her hand on her apron. Eddie squints at her name badge: it reads “HELLO MY NAME IS: AMELIA”. “Just me takin’ care of the motel and cafe today, feels like I’m runnin’ around like a chicken with my head cut off! How can I be of service today?”

“I’m uh. I’m Eddie Brock? Here with “The Paranormal And Also The Pretty Normal Post”? Eddie sheepishly holds out his hand. “I think you might have called in a tip with their- I mean, our- uh. Our cryptid reporting hotline.”

Amelia shakes his outstretched hand with a surprisingly firm grip. She smiles. “The Pretty Normal Post! That there’s actually one of my favorite magazines, always makes for an entertaining read. I particularly liked that article from the most recent issue, about unexpected daemon choices, what was it again? ‘My Daemon Settled As A Tapeworm And Lives In My Lower Intestines And We’re Very Happy Together: And Other Tales You Won’t Believe’?”

“Thank you. That does sounds like something we’d publish,” Eddie replies. He hadn’t been responsible for that one- if he had to hazard a guess, that was probably the daemon horoscope department’s handiwork. Still, he can’t resist giving Venom a nudge. “Hey!” He mentally sends, tone teasing. ”Hey, I can’t believe they actually wrote an article about us! We’re famous!”

**“Hggn,”** Venom responds, and sulks.

“Anyways,” Eddie refocuses his attention on Amelia, “we actually got several reports at the hotline of something in the area. So I’ll just be here for a few days, interviewing folks, you know. Maybe do a little cryptid hunting.”

“Gotcha!” Amelia nods understandingly. “I’m afraid I didn’t see much, but I can definitely tell you what I do know. And you’re in luck because there’s a couple of hikers at the cafe right now who also saw somethin’ the other day, we were jus’ talkin’ about it.”

Eddie pulls out his notebook and a pen. “Maybe just tell me… what exactly did you see?”

Amelia smooths down her apron. “Like I said, I didn’t see much. Just takin’ out the trash before it got too dark out, you know? And then I glanced over across the street at that alley over there”- here, she gestures vaguely out the door- ”and I see some sort of black shadow. Kinda humanoid, but way too tall to be a person. Blinked and it was gone. Almost thought it was my old eyes playin’ tricks on me, ‘xcept some other folks started sayin’ they seen somethin’ similar”.

She lapses into silence. Eddie gives her a moment, then breaks it. “That actually sounds pretty terrifying.”

She shrugs. “Oh, I guess. It sounds scarier than it actually was. It was worryin’ at first, since I seen enough horror movies to know where this was goin’. But it wasn’t really botherin’ me, you know? Looked more like it was rifflin’ through the dumpster. And it ran off after I saw it and I haven’t seen it since, so I don’t think it’ll be much of a nuisance.”

“That’s interesting to know. One more quick question,” Eddie pauses his notetaking, “and then maybe some pancakes? They smell really good!”

“Sure thing, dear!” Amelia folds her hands and waits.

“Is there anything- apart from the cryptid I mean- that’s been out of the ordinary these past few days? Or anyone? Something new? It’s just that these sightings started happening really recently and never before, so I’m wondering if maybe there’s some external explanation for them.” He taps his pen against his notebook.

Amelia pauses for a moment, studying him shrewdly. Her response is a little cagier than before. “I don’t much recall. I certainly don’t think anythin’ particular strange has happened recently? And people are always passin’ through here, hard to tell who’s who ‘xcept amongst us locals, you know? Seein’ as we’re a pretty hot tourist destination and all.” She stops. It doesn’t look like she’s going to offer anything else up.

“Alright, thank you very much! This has been extremely helpful.” Eddie flips his notebook closed. “Can I check in now, please? And then grab a bite to eat? Pardon the language, but I could eat a horse!”

Venom is still sulking and doesn’t respond when prodded, so Eddie takes it upon himself to order an entire stack of pancakes with a side of everything, and two of hash browns (best in the state, Amelia had said with a wink).

Amanda introduces Eddie to Clark and Louis, two university students on some sort of final cross country hiking road trip before settling into mundane adult life. Clark and Louis both claim they saw something while walking back to the motel at night, standing still just past the tree line staring at them. Like Amelia, their sighting was actually from pretty far away and the thing had disappeared as soon as they noticed it, so they disagree slightly on the details. Louis swears it was a person, humanoid but “way too tall to be natural, man. Scared the absolute shit out of us.” Clark argues that it must have been some kind of animal- “Big floppy ears, dude, like an elephant? They were kinda wiggling around. Definitely an animal. I reckon it must have been hunched over or sitting and we just couldn’t see the rest of its body behind the trees.” Both agree it was as dark as a shadow, indistinct but with no noticeable markings or patterns. Eddie pays attention and tries to take lots of notes. Venom continues to give him the silent treatment, which should in theory make his job easier but which he inexplicably finds very distracting.

And then Louie pipes up- “You know, I heard from some of the other hikers. They found a whole bunch of chewed up deer, just off of Tally Lake Trail? A couple of miles from the trailhead”- and Eddie is paying attention again.

 

\----

 

Maria’s daemon, Doriane, had been a deer, skittish and delicate, his big eyes always anxiously darting around searching faithfully for danger. It had been a hassle for her, having a relatively large daemon while homeless on street corners, pile of blankets and various belongings strewn about the pavement and her daemon curled up next to her trying not to get bumped into by the people walking by. He hadn’t been one for talking and spoke in a low, soft voice when he did, but that had been alright because Maria had talked enough for the both of them. There were not many places in San Francisco that would allow a homeless person with such a large daemon to stay for long periods of time, so Eddie had been very concerned when the two of them had disappeared. 

When Eddie had found them at the LIFE foundation in that dark, sterile containment room, they’d been curled up against the far corner, quiet and shivering, a passable but mocking imitation of the way they’d been on their street corner. Then he’d broken the door down and Maria had scrambled across the floor towards him impossibly fast, further away from her daemon, too far for it to have been able to be comfortable. But neither of them showed it; Doriane hadn’t moved at all or even given any indication of what should have horrifyingly painful, had remained sickly and shaking minutely on the opposite side of the room.

Eddie didn’t see the moment when Maria’s daemon unceremoniously fizzled out of existence, having spent his last moments alone in the corner, because he was too busy dealing with the alien incursion crawling down his face. But Eddie knows it must have happened, and  still mourns for them.

 

\----

 

It’s only mid afternoon and the sun is still high in the sky, so Eddie leaves his luggage on the floor of his room and figures he’ll do some more investigating. He takes a minute to take a poke around the alley across the street Amelia had pointed to earlier. It’s sandwiched between a gift shop and a grocery store and looks like a perfectly normal alleyway, nothing suspicious to report. He goes in the gift shop for good measure just to be sure, but all he finds are an assortment of postcards and kichy knick knacks that strangely seem to be present in every gift shop in America. Checking out the grocery store yields similar results, although he does stop to purchase a water bottle and some locally produced beef jerky for a snack later. So then, stumped and because it is actually a pretty nice day out, he decides to go on a hike.

“Veeee,” he cajoles as he tries to decipher the map and Clark’s weird scribbles directing him to the trailhead from the dusty lot he has parked in. Then, when Venom continues to give him the silent treatment, “Vee, there’s nobody around, you can come out now if you want.”

Venom clearly can’t resist but still tries to draw it out, unwinding out from Eddie slowly like a petulant child. He tosses back his head and makes a big show out of ignoring Eddie in favor of examining the scenery around them. But when Eddie holds out his hand he obligingly settles around it, and seems to take the pats Eddie gives him as a good enough apology.

**“WHAT ARE WE DOING, EDDIE.”**

“We are hiking!” Eddie responds cheerfully as he crunches down the trail. “Out of the city, time to enjoy the great outdoors!”

Venom is… actually pretty engaged in the wildlife and the hike. Eddie does his best to point out what few species of fauna he is able to recognize, and they even find a couple of beetles and a slug on the side of the trail. Granted, Venom also tries to eat them but hey. You can’t win them all. Eddie allows himself to relax into it, no noise but their footsteps on the trail and the trees whispering in the wind overhead, not another soul in sight. It’s a really, really nice feeling, just watching Venom discovering new things and knowing he’s mostly responsible for it. A few miles in he remembers the beef jerky and pulls it out with a flourish, to Venom’s delight. It proves to be a hit and they spend some time walking in companionable silence, both of them gnawing enthusiastically on pieces of the excellent jerky. Privately Eddie knows this is probably not good, the depth of his feelings towards his weird alien hitchhiker, but he can’t bring himself to care. It’s been so long since he’s felt like this.

**“THIS IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM SAN FRANCISCO. IT FEELS MORE…. ORGANIC. EARTH HAS SO MANY SIGHTS TO SEE. ALL OF THEM ARE SO DIFFERENT. NOTHING LIKE HOME.”** Venom pauses for a moment.  **“I’M GLAD I DECIDED TO STAY. WILL WE BE ABLE TO SEE THE SNOW?”**

“Sure, if we go high enough, but that’s actually pretty far so maybe a trip for another day. And also, there might be some mutilated deer somewhere down this trail, according to those hikers earlier, so. A chance to investigate.”

**“DEER.”** Eddie can feel Venom’s giddy excitement reverberate through him.  **“YOU PROMISED WE COULD EAT A DEER. OR AN ELK. OR MAYBE A MOOSE.”**

“Maybe not a moose,” Eddie laughs. “Those things are huge and actually pretty dangerous! Might give us a run for our money in a fight.”

**“THE NICE PANCAKE LADY HAD A MOOSE. HE WAS LARGE.”** Venom floats out of Eddie’s palm and hovers slightly above the dirt.  **“I LIKED HIM. HE LOOKED STRONG.”** And then Venom is growing rapidly, expanding outwards into some interpretation of a moose. The creature is so large that Venom is actually stretched a little thin trying to fill all the space, and the final result is not unlike a slightly liquid abstract wire sculpture swaying in the breeze.

“Don’t need you to turn into a moose to protect me, Vee.” For some reason, this serves to irritate Venom even further, but Eddie can’t imagine why. The moose condenses straight down into a small dog, ears cocked and legs slightly too long to be comfortable.

**“A DOG THEN. LIKE DAN. PEOPLE TRUST DOGS. THEY ARE LOYAL AND FRIENDLY.”**

Eddie can’t seem to stop himself from laughing at that. “Sorry, bud.” He offers. “I think you’re a little too uncanny like that for people to want to trust you or be your friend.”

Venom’s agitation seems to grow. The dog form flattens out long and further down into some sort of ferret or ermine, then circles up his arm, shrinking into a twisting, twining snake and then-

“Hey, stranger!” Eddie and Venom both simultaneously freeze and look up at the two approaching and very inconvenient hikers who had just hollered at them.

“DISGUISE.” Eddie mentally orders in alarm.

**“NO LEECHES.”**

Eddie desperately racks his brain for any recent inspiration, since Venom has so clearly declared his vendetta against leeches.

“Remember the slug we saw earlier? Do that.”

**“NO! DON’T WANT TO.”**   
“Just do it, please!”

He watches, relieved, as Venom shrinks and grows little wiggling eyestalks. Eddie’s relief is short lived, however, because with the transformation comes a cold, hurt, unhappy feeling that washes swiftly over him. Venom is clearly upset, but he doesn’t understand  _ why _ .

“Good day for a hike, isn’t it!” The speaker stops in front of Eddie and waves enthusiastically, cheeks ruddy in the cold. Her hiking partner stands silently behind her but gives a slow little wave in acknowledgement. Their daemons, a red fox and a lean coyote respectively, trot behind them.

“Good afternoon!” Eddie tries his best not to show how terrible he suddenly feels. “It’s a little chilly out, but sure, if you like that!” She laughs at that.

Eddie attempts to smile back. “Actually, if you have a moment. I’m here with, uh. With a magazine, looking into some recent cryptid sightings? I was wondering if you knew anything about that.”

“Oh, sorry.” She looks apologetic. “We heard some other folks talking about the monster sightings, but we haven’t really seen it ourselves. Actually, we also heard from other hikers that there were some strange deer mutilations around here, so we thought it would be fun to check it out! It’s just down that way, only another mile or so.”

“Oh thank you, that’s very helpful! I’m actually not very used to hiking, so I was hoping I’d get there before my legs dropped off of me.” At least Eddie doesn’t have to fake how tired he is, he thinks to himself as he sheepishly rubs the back of his head.

“Oooh, a slug daemon!” The chatty hiker observes, staring at Venom curled up grudgingly on Eddie’s arm. Another wave of cold hits Eddie at that. “You wouldn't expect it, but I guess they’re more common than I thought!” They say their goodbyes and with another wave the two of them are gone, heading toward the trailhead at a far brisker and more practiced pace than Eddie could possibly manage. 

Eddie tries to continue down the trail for another few minutes, but quickly realizes that the cold feeling is steadily getting worse. This is past the point of one of Venom’s usual tantrums: his symbiote must actually feel pretty bad. But that doesn’t make any sense. He can feel his insides almost vibrating in disharmony and his nausea growing and it feels awful, like a headache forming behind his brow. “Fuck it, the deer can wait,” Eddie decides. “Venom, we probaby need to talk.”

 

\----

 

Eddie hadn’t seen it for himself, but Anne had stumbled upon Carlton Drake’s tiger daemon at the LIFE Foundation while leaving the control room. She had told him about it later and Eddie couldn’t help but think about the first time he had seen the tiger, back during that disastrous interview, how proud and domineering and regal and utterly terrifying she had seemed. How her slitted pupils had focused on him briefly before flicking away, as if he were nothing more than an insect under her paws. How she had turned away, muscles rippling under her coat, the perfect poise of power and strength.

“She was so still.” Anne had sipped at her coffee, a somber expression on her face. “She wasn’t really moving, but she was shaking a little and making these awful whining noises, like she was sick. Just- abandoned, I guess, on the cold linoleum floor. I didn’t want to leave her by herself, no matter how much of an asshole her owner had been, but its not like I could touch her. So I just sat there next to her. And then there was the rocket explosion, and she sort of… faded away.”

Anne had carefully set her still half-full cup down on the stoop they were sitting on before continuing. “There was… a Maystadt Device in the room, I’m pretty sure. I mean, taking up most of the room. I think that was what that room was for.” She had twisted her hands together, almost unconsciously. “It looked like something out of the 1950s but with more chrome, I never  _ imagined _ I’d ever see one in real life. I don’t know why he had one of those, or what else he did with it, but I think Carlton Drake must have had his daemon- had her- intercised.”

Eddie had felt a flicker of nausea at that, then a flicker of concern from Venom in response. Even as people without daemons, Anne and him both intrinsically understood the inherent wrongness, the horror of intercession. How the act was, in some ways, even worse than just simply killing an individual, how violating it was. And the implication- that for some unfathomable reason Carlton Drake had done it to himself- made it somehow even more horrible, and the man even more monstrous.

 

\----

 

It is almost dusk by the time Eddie somehow makes it back off the trail and back into Whitefish. He pulls his car into the parking lot of the Bull Moose Motel and quickly parks. Venom remains silent, still radiating that cold hurt feeling. Eddie’s head pulses slightly as he parks and speedwalks stiffly straight to his room without pausing to say anything to the confused Amelia, locking the door behind him with a click.

“Vee.” He says carefully to the empty room. “I can tell something is up. Talk to me, bud. What’s eating you?”

No response.

Eddie unlaces his boots and slips them off, then carefully settles himself down on the bed, his legs hanging off the bedframe. “Vee, I know that you’re upset. I can feel it, and it’s not a good feeling. You gotta tell me what I did, because right now… right now I’m really not sure.” He pats the spot next to him on the bed.

A few seconds elapse, and then Venoms slinks out onto the waiting spot.

**“...I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”** His voice is uncharacteristically small, almost brittle.  **“WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING US TO PRETEND TO BE BAD DAEMONS. PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE BAD DAEMONS. I THOUGHT DAEMONS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE REFLECTIONS OF THEIR OWNERS? THAT THEY ARE ONE AND THE SAME, AND CERTAIN DAEMONS ARE MORE DESIRABLE THAN OTHERS BECAUSE THEY MEAN THEIR OWNERS HAVE GOOD QUALITIES. AT LEAST, THAT IS WHAT THE ARTICLES YOUR EMPLOYER PUBLISHES ALWAYS SAY.”**

“Is that it!?” Eddie says in disbelief, then: “No, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to belittle your feelings like that. But come on, dude. I’ve only had you for a relatively short period of time, but when have you ever cared what other people think about you? You gotta know everything that magazine prints is pure garbage, right? For fucks sake, we run a  _ 24 hour cryptid sighting hotline. _ ” He pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts. “Look, the truth is nobody knows why or how daemons settle. You can’t really tell how a person is going to be based on what their daemon is? You might be able to line up and compare similar traits if you know both of them well, but that’s it. And sometimes they might complement each other in surprising ways! For example, take my friend Maria- ”

**“-SORRY.”** Venom suddenly interrupts.

“...Sorry?” Eddie asks. “Whatever for?”

**“SORRY FOR MARIA.”** Venom looks genuinely contrite despite being a terrifying blob of black with eyes and teeth. **“SHE WAS YOUR FRIEND, AND I KILLED HER. I DID NOT MEAN TO, BUT I AM SORRY I KILLED HER.”**

Aw, jeez. This conversation. Eddie adjusts himself, lifting his legs up and sprawling out on the bed so he can talk to Venom face to face. He waits for Venom to continue.

**“I DID NOT MEAN TO.”** He repeats it again, for emphasis.  **“I TRIED TO BOND WITH HER, BUT SOMEHOW IT WENT WRONG. THERE WAS THIS- THIS AWFUL TEARING FEELING THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN WHEN WE BOND, AND THEN A LOT OF PAIN. SHE SURVIVED BUT NOT FOR LONG. SHE WAS ALREADY DYING. ”**

Eddie rubs at his eyes in frustration. “Maria’s death was not your fault,” he tries to say.

**“IS THAT THE REASON WHY?”** Venom barrels on, ignoring him.  **“I HURT THINGS. I KILL TO EAT. I DESTROY.”** His voice rises.  **“IS THAT WHY I’M A LEECH. A TAPEWORM. A SLUG. A BLOODSUCKING PARASITE TO BE GOTTEN RID OF, A PEST THAT- THAT DESTROYS GARDENS-”**

Something in Eddie’s brain finally clicks.

“Vee, are you upset because you think the reason I keep asking you to pretend to be what you think of as… ‘bad daemons’, is because I feel that way about you?” Eddie gently asks.

Venom doesn’t reply, but after a few moments he subtly shakes his head up and down. Yes.

“But you KNOW I don’t believe in that kind of stuff. And you must know that I like having you around!” Actually, Eddie has rapidly reached a point where he can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t have Venom around.

**“MAYBE NOT INTENTIONALLY, BUT IT MIGHT BE A SUBCONSCIOUS FEAR. LIKE HOW YOU ARE ALWAYS REJECTING OUR IDEAS FOR BETTER DAEMON CHOICES.”** Venom responds, still glum.

Better daemon choices.... And then Eddie remembers dismissing Venom’s cat, and his moose, and his dog.

“Vee, I promise you, it was less about projecting onto you what those animals are supposed to represent and more about how those are really the only daemons you can sort of pose as without causing a mass panic. Pinky swear.” He holds out his pinky finger, and a small tendril of black tentatively approaches it, pausing before hooking around it cautiously. “Truth is, I didn’t really think much about what daemon to disguise you as, because your real form- that’s the best version. You already protect me. And I know you’re super loyal. I like you as you! Giant teeth and weird gooey eyes and all.”

**“SO YOU DEFINITELY STILL WANT US AROUND? NO TAKE BACKS.”**

Eddie reaches his hand over and behind Venom, and pulls him closely into his chest. He feels Venom do a little wriggle, curling up into the space. Well, here goes nothing. Eddie takes a deep breath.

“You are… probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I never felt like I was missing out on anything with the not having a daemon, and honestly I still don’t. But the truth is…to me, you feel like a missing puzzle piece. Like you’re filling a void that’s been empty for a long, long time?” Eddie lets out a long sigh, almost like he’d forgotten how to breathe until now. “And I think… the void you’re filling is less like the sort a daemon would fill, and more like the sort Anne would fill. And I happen to think you’re real cute, but you’re also a real pain in my neck as well! So sorry dude. It looks like you’re stuck with me.”

**“...YOU THINK I AM CUTE?”** Venom rumbles into Eddie’s chest.  **“I THINK... I LIKE THAT A LOT. I LIKE IT WHEN YOU TAKE CARE OF ME. I THINK YOU ARE CUTE, TOO. I LIKE TAKING CARE OF YOU.”** Venom pauses, and there is silence for a moment **. “YOU ARE THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME AS WELL.”**

Aw, dang. Eddie pulls Venom closer and he lets him. They stays curled up on top of the bed, Eddie still in his sweaty hiking clothes. He is holding and soothing Venom, but Venom is also holding and soothing him: they form a perfect feedback loop of calm and contentment and affection. It’s the happiest Eddie has felt in a good long time, and he sends out a prayer to whoever is listening that he gets to keep this. To keep being happy, to keep being them, to keep being together. That somehow, despite how goddamn weird this is, that they can make it work.

 

\----

 

In the end, they stumble upon the cryptid purely by luck. They spend another day trying to suss out more potential witnesses, canvassing the town and the more popular hiking trails with little luck. From the initial interviews it sounds like the creature appears mostly at dusk or at night and might be nocturnal and Eddie did promise Venom they’d get to eat an elk or something, so. After dark, they quietly slip out and go hunting.

Venom does something to Eddie’s eyes that has him seeing almost like its day instead of blobs of black on black, which is pretty cool. They pick one of the less well known trails, hike about a mile down it, then quietly step off into the waiting forest.

Venom swivels his his head back and forth, wavering a little, smelling the air.  **“THIS WAY,”** he rumbles. Eddie picks his way through the forest, changing direction when Venom demands it. He can feel a satisfied little thrill that is definitely not originating from him every time he does. Then he locates some hoofprints in the mud collecting between some tree roots, and from there it is not too difficult following both the trail of prints and the elk scent to a clearing where-

“Holy shit,” Eddie breathes.

The clearing contains a small herd of sleeping elk, as expected. What is not expected is the shadowy humanoid figure standing right behind them, upright and impossibly tall, terrifyingly unearthly and indistinct even with his improved eyesight. It turns to them. It cocks its head slowly. It sees them. It is making its way towards them. It is already here.

Eddie doesn’t even have time to be surprised before the cryptid- or monster, or whatever you wanted to call it, since it wasn’t a cryptid since he now had definite proof it was actually real - is standing in front of him. He can feel Venom wrapping around him protectively as his journalist brain automatically starts categorizing and analyzing. Clark hadn’t been wrong- it has two long ears, upright but boneless, misshapen and bending  _ wrong _ on the top of its head. Its eyes are gigantic, milky white and pupiless, glistening wetly in the dark. Its teeth are too large for its mouth and curled up in a macabre grin. It is clearly another Symbiote and Eddie had suspected but didn’t really think-

Instead of trying to eat him, the other Symbiote’s face unexpectedly peels back, toothy smile and large ears shrinking into the rippling dark blue as it does. Underneath are a pair of big square glasses sitting crookedly on a nose and a decidedly human face:

“Umm. Hi there.” Dora Skirth smiles nervously, and waves a dark claws at Eddie.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok cards on the table I wrote this fic primarily to unfridge Dora Skirth and also probably am going to write a companion fic about her? Because... I am gay.  
> Some important notes (about Dora because who cares about Eddie and Venom actually,):  
> \- Faked her own death  
> \- On the run from the law, in Montana for some reason  
> \- Good at planning, so actually talked it out with her symbiote and sensibly decided their fake daemon persona would be a california sea hare (LOOK AT IT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15I8eIqh9iI)  
> \- Dora/Symbiote fusion form is actually the terrifying rabbit mask from Donnie Darko


End file.
